THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH

"I'd like to die on Mars,"

Elon Musk opined,

"but not on impact."

He founded SpaceX

and builds reusable rockets

only half of which have crashed.

$200,000 will buy you

a one-way ticket to Mars

forsaking gas bills,

wedding ring, aged parrot,

Christmas, tax returns,

and unanswered emails.

Musk is planning infrastructure:

loos that recycle

to feed hydroponic orchards;

vats of genetically modified coliforms

that make steak and vegetables;

a birthing bay;

a euthanasia chair.

He seeks to plant DNA,

stocks of fine deep-frozen ova,

sperm, even blastocysts,

gifts of diverse donors

drawn from Donegal to Dubbo.

But should an error happen

Musk has a plan:

still vague, we understand

it involves a prison

built entirely of Mars bars.

LOST FOR WORDS

How long had I known him?

Forty years I realised

sitting opposite at lunch.

His eyes stopped me:

I could not recall them

so bright, his skin so clear,

no trace of angst,

no evidence of his ambitions,

conversation diminished,

mini-twitches and adjustments,

his gaze, though happy,

time-lapsed as was his smile.

I was lost, though not shocked,

when two days later

I learned that he had died.

THE PROPRIETY OF DEATH

At 102, his death was judged
to be appropriate,
“The end of an era,”
one eulogust opined
and ancient listeners -
white-haired colleagues
albeit somewhat younger -
nodded yes, mmm,
trees bending
in a passing breeze.

His ashes were in a pint-sized casket
on the dais of the Great Hall
under distant gothic light.
Reductio ad absurdum, I thought,
as words lifted to the vault
on currents of warm air.

He’d outlived two wives:
his incapacity from a fall –
although his mind was sharp
and bright as the blade
of a Jerusalem sword –
suggested he should go.
“Time, gentlemen!” the barman said.
He had drunk his fill.

Organ, formality, no poetry,
no religion that winter afternoon.
When the curtain split
unadorned finality like his ashes
in the urn was distributed to us
 in metaphorical unmarked packets –
as appropriate – one for each to carry
as he or she was able.

THE BODY OF THE DEAD CHRIST IN THE TOMB - Hans Holbein 1521

The windows are opaque

in death and even

when the lids are open

whether the soul is inside

we cannot see to say.

And the mouth –

a sepulchre of missing teeth,

furred tongue –

we may have kissed it once,

but it is now

an alien tomb.

Blue-black face, punctured hands,

stabbed side; these are the attributes

of the deity –  living and dying

in this body – 

in all of us. 

HEADING WEST

In the hinterland of life

west of the coast

by 25km of traffic

dense as dust we must

confront the size

of the problem.

Since I arrived

thirty year ago

my brown shoes

have lost their shine

and their soles worn -

singular or plural, urban,

ethnic, aged or rural,

alcohol-obliviated,

club-dominated,

fast-food saturated,

Diet Coke burpurated:

is it any wonder?

Much has changed

but map 241, F13 still marks

the Mt Druitt of my soul,

suburbs built without amenities:

instead, misunderstandings,

sensitivities offended,

little attention to child care,

concrete poured and walls built

in haste against imaginary winds:

letters posted from here

and there give clues,

random roads and rusted gates:

public transport is still bad.

BLOOD BROTHERS AND SISTERS

The desert pea bursts red,

redder than the soil, red as blood,

bleeds its life into days during which

it seduces insects to take its seed

in exchange for that of others,

binds that gift close to build the pod,

the capsule inscribed

with its last grand message to the world,

green peas that soon will also fade

dropping their seeds to the whim of wind

and soil, a few finding a home

but many lost.

Last weekend I visited the desert pea:

it bequeathed to me this little piece of DNA

that contains in its helices

all our complexity -

our place, our blossom,

our seed, our death -

set against the millennia

that roll and roll

across the vast desert. 

THE PYTHAGOREAN STRUGGLE

When I walk I choose
a route made up
of multiple hypotenuse.

Reason is they're shorter
but I walk for exercise:
this's no good for my aorta.

The city blocks aren't long
so I could walk the sides
if legs and will were strong.

My FitBit tells the tale:
goal's ten thousand steps.
Invariably I fail.

One single slice of toast
will power a mile.
God save me from the roast.

At this arthritic rate
I'll not get fit
nor lose a pound of weight.

Weight? In truth it's fat.
I need to give up grog,
no alternative to that.

(The theorem gives no clues
to how I might get thin
walking the hypotenuse.)  

OUT OF PLACE

You live in an inner-city terrace

on land once walked by Gadigal people.

It is morning: you open the door

to collect your Sydney Morning Herald.

On the footpath is a man,

under indifferent blankets asleep

despite the chill and noise of traffic.

He wakes, hands your paper to you:

you exchange a glance

his through half-closed lids of loss.

Do you owe him anything?

Shower and tea perhaps?

Think of your connection:

does not all human history testify

that the fortunes of geography,

set the agenda of our lives?

BAKED OFFERING

My Dad roasted a chicken

that last Christmas.

Rob and I were with him and Mum

in the home at North Epping.

He, and I, as a lad,

built it 30 years before –

we used Oregon and cypress

off-cuts from frame and weatherboards

to boil our billy.

Myeloma was eating his bones,

steroids gave relief enough

for him to cook.

I couldn’t tell if his flushed face

was from the drugs or oven or us

or pleasure with his product.

Multiple impending partings:

we each were boarding

a troop ship for different wars,

leaning over rails

hanging on to streamers,

smiling and choking tears.

“Keep this as a memory,” he said

as a footnote to a short grace.

“Even a chicken roasted

in a small house is enough

to celebrate redemption.”

TREE WITH FRUIT

What knowledge was it?

What seed, what juice

of pomegranate

that split adamandeve

and gave each new each

fear and shame

at the sight

of the other’s

skin?

It is unlikely to have been

about sex – commonplace

among animals. In fact

cloning one

from the other’s rib –

judged poor form by an ethics committee –

No, if guilt was to be assigned

Yahweh would have faced the dock –

an assault, an intervention performed

during sleep without informed consent.

More likely it was awareness of death,

learning that we only visit the garden;

wrinkles form, joints twist and creak,

years turn skin from smooth to sag;

we lose the knack

we lose track.

Knowing this drives us to flee

to dress in fine clothes for the concert

or the play, to hide the surgical scar,

black tie to obscure the strangling cosmic hand

as close and tight as a skin graft

on our throat.